Ephraim Hardcastle
AS our biggest employer of domestic staff, the Queen was at Claridge’s this week for the Gold Service Scholarship awards night. She has a keen eye for detail and cost. My source says: ‘Her staff have to fit the uniforms available rather than the luxury of having them made for them.’ Nor must they inconvenience her dogs, he adds. ‘One footman delivering HM’s tea tray, who became entangled with a corgi, fell and sprained his ankle. The monarch picked up the dog and inspected it for any damage. The Master of the Household “lost” the Queen’s order to dock the hapless footman the cost of some broken china.’
RADIO 4’s chief presenter on Today, John Humphrys, 72, belittles claims by BBC colleague Jeremy Vine, who says he has recorded 67 episodes of Eggheads in 16 days. Says Humphrys: ‘Pah! That works out at about four shows a day. And that is one LESS than we manage with Mastermind – obviously a far more challenging programme in every respect.’
JEFFREY Archer, 75, takes prickly exception to a suggestion, by the usually bland Reader’s Digest, that his novels ‘rattle along’. He responds in an interview: ‘As if that’s easy to do!’ Adding: ‘That’s what I do, I don’t know how I do it, or why I do it. That’s a Godgiven gift.’ Hasn’t Jeffrey hidden his light under a bushel for long enough!?
SIR Mick Jagger’s role alongside Martin Scorsese as ‘producer’ of Vinyl – a TV series set in the New York music scene of the 1970s – was much publicised. Sadly, the show has attracted disappointing reviews and ratings. Hardly the Rolling Stone’s first experience of this kind. His appearance as Australian outlaw Ned Kelly in a 1970 film (see picture) was greeted by a torrent of critical derision. So much so that he has long disowned the film, claiming never to have seen it.
HASN’T Arts Council England enough to do without circulating guidelines to theatres advising on procedure when the Queen or the Duke of Edinburgh die? Theatres have been advised that in the event of a ‘Category A’ royal passing on they should consider stopping a show to tell the audience and lower flags to half mast. Oh, and bad news for Prince Harry. He is not considered senior enough to be included in Category A along with his grandparents, dad, Camilla, William and Kate.
NOW that Met commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe has sort of apologised to Leon Brittan’s widow, Diana, for pursuing him beyond the grave over false allegations of paedophilia, might it be appropriate for others to make amends? Prime Minister David Cameron and Theresa May both avoided Brittan’s secretly arranged memorial service at the West London Synagogue last May. One or both of them would normally have been expected to turn up.
THE Guardian’s new £1,000 BAME short story prize, in collaboration with 4th Estate publishers, specifies that it is for black, Asian and minority ethnic writers and Arabs, but not Jews. Can the pious sandal-wearers get away with such discrimination?